Mayor Johnson's real work starts now. He has to deliver a publicly financed, state-of-the-art NBA arena as soon as possible, to NBA commissioner David Stern and the other NBA owners. Sacramento's elected officials have to figure out how to come up with at least $300m, and how to deal with legal challenges from one group which is suing the city for not being transparent in cobbling an arena deal and another that wants Sacramento voters to decide if they want to pay for an arena. Sacramento has fiscal problems and has closed municipal swimming pools and cut municipal workers. There are various agencies that need to say yes to an arena. California is a difficult state for arena and stadium building, because of regulations.

Commissioner Stern has a formula for success for a franchise. A team needs government support – local governments need to come up with funding and tax incentives for an arena. A team needs a large local cable television contract and significant local corporate support. In Sacramento, the franchise does have strong government support, but Sacramento isn't a big cable TV market. That means the team doesn't get New York-, Los Angeles-, Chicago- Philadelphia- or San Francisco-style TV dollars. It is a government town without many major corporations who can buy big-ticket items such as club seats and luxury boxes.

The shortfall needs to be made up from arena revenues. The Kings franchise may not get much of an increase in the near future in cable TV revenues from Comcast, the owner of the local regional sports cable network, because Comcast has to negotiate new agreements with the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's baseball teams. Comcast also has deals with the NBA's Golden State Warriors and the NHL's San Jose Sharks, along with college sports. There just might not be much money left in the till for a Sacramento team that is cut off from the San Francisco Bay Area TV market , even though the cable TV network includes a good chunk of Northern California. Sacramento gets towns like the bankrupt Stockton and Modesto as part of its territory.

The final deal between Mayor Johnson and the Ranadive group may include letting the owners take 92% of all arena revenues from every event held inside the building. (Under rules established by 1986 federal tax code reforms, a municipality can allow an owner to take 92% of arena revenues.) That's the only way a Sacramento franchise can be viable. That leaves just eight cents on every dollar to pay down arena debt and that may force Johnson and his administration to look at other revenue sources to pay off arena bills.

The Sacramento Kings franchise has been fiscally challenged since 1996. Then, Jim Thomas, the owner at the time, proposed building both an MLB stadium and an NBA arena in the city. By January 1997, the idea had fallen apart and Thomas began threatening to sell the team, because the franchise was losing money. City leaders, fearing that Thomas might move the team to Anaheim or elsewhere, loaned him $82m. Thomas sold the franchise to the Maloof brothers in 1998.

In 2001, Sacramento's mayor Heather Fargo put together a task force, to study whether Sacramento should green-light an arena and entertainment center in the downtown area. By November 2002 there was some sort of commitment to the plan. But the Maloof brothers pulled out of the proposed venture within a year, partly because they didn't want to get stuck with a debt service bill. When the issue was revisited in 2004, the Maloofs were unhappy that a city councilman offered a resolution that would cap spending at $175m for the city and $175m for the Maloofs.

In 2006 there was another arena proposal on the table, and Sacramento officials appeared to have deliberately used language that made it unclear what voters were being asked to approve. A two-part referendum called for a quarter-of-a-cent general tax hike for 15 years and then asked whether voters would like to see the estimated $1.2bn in proceeds go to building an arena and other community projects.

Why didn't Sacramento politicians mention that the tax increase in question was in fact a sales-tax hike? The answer seemed to be that the arena referendum had to be worded in such a way because it was never going to get the two-thirds approval needed under California law to pass a sales-tax increase. Officials need just a simple majority, a 50.1% plurality, to win a general tax hike.

The two questions on the November 2006 ballot were soundly defeated – but there is never surrender in the "arena game". Commissioner Stern took over negotiations in 2007 – and nothing happened. The NBA walked away from the bargaining table within two years, leaving the Maloofs to look elsewhere.

It is unclear why the NBA didn't want Hansen, his partner, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and Seattle. In 2008, the NBA left Seattle when the SuperSonics ownership left town, because Seattle elected officials could not put together a publicly funded arena proposal. The NBA may have skipped explaining the owners' motives for turning down Seattle, because Hansen/Ballmer could sue Stern and the 29 owners for interfering with a business deal. Seattle will remain an intriguing and tantalizing market for the NBA, as there is a possibility for a sizeable local cable TV contract and the city houses the kind of corporate market that leagues want, with Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, Expedia, Costco, Boeing and more.

There is no indication that the Hansen/Ballmer group will sue the league. There seems to some understanding, though, that the NBA would like to return to Seattle in the future.

Photograph: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

The Sacramento Kings saga will not end with the NBA governors' decision to keep the status quo. Even though the ownership of the franchise has apparently been decided, building an arena could still be a massive problem. Kings fans scored their most important victory of the 2012-13 season when the decision was made to keep the team in Sacramento, but they have won just one game in this playoff series. There is a long way to go before the franchise's future is determined.